Ways of Seeing, and Being Seen
by LeaveMeInKars
Summary: Just after the events in Breaking Dawn, the Cullen coven suddenly finds itself splintering. Edward and Carlisle end up traveling and learn uncomfortable truths about each other and themselves. Carlisle/Edward/Carlisle


The strangest thing about being a vampire was time. The rest of humanity for the most part hummed along their own path, and Edward was familiar with the sensation of watching them come and go, flitting about like bees in a flower garden. Most of the time, he didn't feel timeless, but as if he was moving in a parallel stream to their own. Growing, thinking, changing, but with a languid rhythm, out of step with the rest of the world, but not wholly immune to its demands.

At least, that's what he thought until Bella left. It was as if the whole glass menagerie of his and Carlisle's lives somehow shattered around them. Renesmee was learning to speak at length and more fully, and Bella suddenly didn't like how Edward spoke to her. He could never puzzle out what was underneath the shifting complaints - first he was too lenient, then too strict, then too detached.

In darker moments, he had to wonder if maybe there was nothing beneath it all. Maybe these were all excuses, justifications. Maybe she just wanted to leave him for Jacob, who was still tagging along allegedly as just a friend. Whether there was anything there or not, Edward reflected that perhaps Bella and himself were less compatible, especially after her pregnancy. He had first found out about Renesmee in a moment of panic and fear. As much as he had grown fond of his daughter, there was always that lingering sourness to their introduction.

When the time came, he understood why Bella wanted to leave with her daughter and whatever Jacob was to the both of them. Edward avoided wondering if the werewolf's peeling skin shrouded this whole future timeline from Alice's vision, or if she simply didn't want to tell him. How would she even have started to warn him?

Rosalie was the first to pry it out of Edward in the aftermath. As always, it was more important to her that she knew than that he himself had a moment to think. So, scarcely a minute after Bella's private announcement to him, Rosalie demanded to know what they had talked about. Emmett stood by his wife, her words sharp as ever. Before Carlisle could even be told that Bella was leaving, those two stormed off to join her in exile. Even if it meant being around Jacob, it also meant being around Renesmee, and that carried so much weight for them.

Jasper and Esme took these developments the only way they ever took ill news: badly. Jasper had lost his model for control and power, and everyone in the room knew he was contemplating running after the merry band. It wasn't just written on his face, but Alice's too. It was probably stamped on Edward's since the buzzing consideration wouldn't stop swatting into him like flies, but he never got a chance to confirm if he was that transparent.

Esme, on the other hand, was withdrawn. Edward could hear the tone shift in her mind's voice. Her blueprints and plans suddenly were becoming expired dreams rather than eventual constructed additions. Carlisle held her, but they all knew she had already buried a child in her prior life, and this was a sudden sharp reminder of everything she had needed to forget – of lives extinguished before they could even be lived. She had always loved a bad attempt over a dearth of opportunity, and suddenly her infinite future had been overwritten into a cemetery of what-might-have-been chances.

In ten minutes, the family Carlisle had spent nearly a century slowly forming had broken, and what was left behind seemed still so rickety. Their wooden home rattled in the chilly winter wind as the reality of their isolation set in. They were apart from humanity, but also had a veil between them and their fellow vampires. And now, their numbers had nearly halved in a matter of moments. As the night went on, Edward pulled out from their library their well-worn copy of "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire". It felt topical, not only as a harrowing account of the disintegration of society, but as history. Before Bella, he was like a ghost - wandering in some unending and uneventful after. Now, in her wake, he again felt like ruins, a fossilized testament to a human life, with no future, either glorious or even ordinary. He only had dimming prospects of preservation.

At 3:28 in the morning, as he was contemplating knocking on Carlisle's door to spill open his mind, recasting Bella as his own personal Justinian, the front door slammed not once but twice. Peering out the window, it became clear, Jasper was also flying the coop, and Alice was in hot pursuit. Edward groaned. Decades of Esme's love had gone into gardens that were yielding bitter fruit after bitter fruit. He didn't know how much more she could take, and in such rapid succession too. His fears were realizing as the days turned into weeks. None of them came back. She was refusing to eat, even as her golden eyes dulled into dusk and finally an inky darkness.

Carlisle brought her bags upon bags of blood - every variety of human and animal he could. She refused them all. Edward thought sadly of something she had always said about being turned. Having mourned a child and run from an abusive husband, she jumped off a cliff, only to wake up staring at the handsome doctor she had briefly known years before. She was unsure in that moment if she was in heaven or hell. Maybe she had decided it was the former as she warmed to Edward and Carlisle. But as the fairytale had unraveled, and the house she had designed and built become a mausoleum for just their three stone corpses, perhaps she had come to a reevaluation.

She had her perch, on the second story, far enough removed from the windows that a human looking in wouldn't quite be able to see her, but giving her a vantage point, to confirm she was seeing her children and grandchild and friends returning to her if they ever came home. Carlisle and Edward hated to leave, but they weren't participating in her solemn hunger strike against the universe. Her eyes misted over, her skin changed from a vibrant marble to dusty slate, and her face sank into a shroud of mourning and hunger.

Their fourteenth hunt was the most eventful one. Edward was even more sullen than usual, since there were scarcely any mountain lions. Carlisle without words gave him permission to be animalistic and gnaw directly into the deer's upper torso. Pinned to the ground, Carlisle kept its chest exposed as Edward dove into suckling directly on its aorta, the blood rushing directly into him as the creature's heart gave one last erratic beat. Edward pulled back, covered in blood across his entire face and neck. Carlisle drank quietly, taking breaks pensively, as if meditating on the horrors of what sustained them both in this somber chapter. These hunts had been degraded from momentarily bursts of violence, punctuating idyllic married lives, to ghoulish chores to keep themselves somewhat human in a souring world.

"We should travel again," Carlisle said, breaking the moment's silence, as they both leaned on the corpse in a momentary respite. Edward grunted softly in agreement.

The two hunters rose quietly, and returned to the house, only to find Esme moved from her station. Edward listened and her endless loop of sorrowful thoughts was nowhere to be heard. She was not in range, or at least no longer thinking that or anything else. They searched the untouched rooms, hoping to find some clue of whether Volturi or other vampires had surprised her, or if she had fled from trespassing humans, or simply left of her own accord. There was nothing but the same subtle accumulation of grime from emptiness and disuse in room after room.

There was a week of waiting there, hoping for a word of explanation or even Esme herself to arrive, but there was the same long silence that had settled in after Alice had slammed the door while chasing Jasper. Everyone was gone, except for the first two. They rarely needed words between them, they were so used to each other's company. Without discussion, they met at the front door after that week. Carlisle had Esme's favorite scarf wrapped around his neck. Edward was in his smartest modern jacket but also a beloved old cap.

Carlisle shut the door, and then in a moment of risk, Edward struck a match, and let the wooden frames catch. He had never understood why Esme had built a house for immortals who feared nothing more than fire out of such a flammable material. But it made a good pyre for the life she had had with him and Carlisle, as well as the once perpetually growing throng of her children.

Edward had raced off, as he always did, but then doubled back, realizing Carlisle wasn't following with even his normal attempts at the same urgency. He was walking like a human. He always found the most curious moments to emulate what they both had once been. They walked down the rough road, winding as it did through the sparse wooded hillsides. They reached the main road, and then paused a moment.

"I think I miss Europe," Carlisle said, cautiously.

"It has been a long time since we have visited there," Edward answered, thinking they were both too scalded by the separations to say anything outright anymore.

"Edinburgh?" Carlisle offered, in a calculated tone.

"Let's start there, definitely," Edward said, wanting it to be decided already.

Edward took his time, so that Carlisle could stay at his side, but in only a matter of hours, they were at the Atlantic. Edward had pulled their path north to avoid Chicago, Toronto, and Manhattan, so it was the frosty Maine shore that greeted them. They paused, what had been a pleasant diversion from their predicaments had evolved into a true weighing of options.

"How much do we have?" Edward asked, suddenly painfully aware of what Alice leaving meant. To some extent, investments could continue to return on themselves, but they no longer had a guard against price shocks or her foresight to aggressively pursue business opportunities. Carlisle paused, summing things together in his mind.

"Between all the accounts, more than enough for a flight. Besides, it's better if we have a record of exit and entry to avoid suspicion."

Carlisle tugged at the scarf around his neck before adding, "Also, the water could destroy the passports and other documents on us, and we don't need to do the work of replacing those."

Edward nodded, accepting that there were sometimes reasons to do things the human way. So, like mundane humans, they found their way to nearest airport, and purchased their tickets. The fluorescent lighting made Edward nervous. He wanted to check if he was shining, but Carlisle's calm looks and still flatly unreflective skin relaxed him. Neither of them took care to display the pretense of human daily rituals, but in transitory spaces most people were too distracted. Two comparatively awake figures in the wee hours of the morning barely stood out in the airport.

They passed through inspections, boarded, waited, disembarked, then passed through more inspections. It was a matter of human ritual that they had chosen to participate in for everyone's convenience, but also a welcome pattern of obedience to this strange modern place's expectations. Neither of them had to think. They just had to listen and respond as instructed.

Walking through Edinburgh and after a short tour eventually finding themselves in Glasgow, the Americanisms Carlisle had adopted loosened from his tongue. They had to still be somewhat mindful, particularly Carlisle, of their archaic language, but he seemed less reticent for the first time in more years than Edward had realized to count.

They hunted briefly in the Highlands, focusing on minks at Carlisle's suggestion since they were invasive. Sated on a few quick sips from those small bodies, they relaxed on a craggy stretch of coastline. Impulsively, Carlisle took off his disposable hunting garb, and dove into the surging salt water. Edward, bemused, lingered on the rocky shore.

"It's not a bad way to get the blood off," Carlisle said, as he emerged from the sea. Edward snorted a sort of agreement, while averting his eyes.

"We could visit the cave I've told you about," Carlisle added, patting himself dry with his shirt, before donning his shoes and pants. Edward nodded in light interest.

They descended through the lowlands then border region and finally northern England, finally reaching the cave Carlisle had sealed himself inside. Edward peered around, half expecting to see the modern descendants of the fabled deer that Carlisle had fed upon, the first enactment of their vegetarian practice and a revolution in vampire-human relations.

"This is where it began," Carlisle said wistfully, looking into a decrepit hole in the side of a hill.

"Humble beginnings," Edward mused, a little harshly. Carlisle's pleasant expression didn't fade, but flickered for a moment. They stood for a few more minutes in silence, gazing at the open cavern.

An awkwardness hung over the two of them as they left. They continued south, with no more detours to examine either of Carlisle's prior lives. Crossing the channel, they retreated from the longer days and bolder sun into the night, the indoors, and various urban underworlds. Once in Italy, they realized how close they were to the Volturi, and that a visit might be expected.

"We didn't visit Siobhan," Carlisle noted.

"Siobhan isn't like them," Edward said, resigned to the inevitable decision that they ought to submit to.

"Marcus might be sympathetic to our... situation," Carlisle said.

"Do you want his sympathy?" Edward asked. Carlisle paused to consider this.

The Volturi greeted them with the same strange cocktail of emotional complication. They masked their thinly veiled contempt towards all vampires who merely complied with their laws with a genuine fascination over the bizarre vegetarians. Needing to negotiate their anger and their curiosity was somehow a distraction from the long shadows of loneliness – for Edward, for Carlisle, but also the Volturi themselves.

"It has been such a short time since we saw you last," Aro said with a tightly coiled energy, mistakable as either honest enthusiasm or the cheerful giddiness of guiding your prey into a trap.

"No singer[WN1] on this visit?" Aro asked. Carlisle was about to answer, the earnestness dripping out of him in a way that made Edward want to smack him, when thankfully Aro continued, interrupting him, "No matter, we welcome you to our home."

Nights with the Volturi passed in a feverishly quick fashion. The locals did feast on human blood, but dawdlingly to delay the gratification. They busied their nights with performances, readings, and showings, but after the second one, Edward remembered how quickly they had blurred together in prior visits. The vampiric intensity splashed over a backdrop of Etruscan plainness, and the effect was stunning, but quickly grew predictable.

Edward performed briefly on the fifth night. Only Jane was curious for more, so he obliged her with a continuation in a smaller side room. It began well, but soon his piano seemed as constrained by culture, by taste, by sound, as anything the Volturi conjured up for their entertainment. He raised his hands from the keyboard, and Jane raised her eyebrows. If it had not been his hosts' instrument, he realized he would have smashed it, just to hear something new. She seemed to sense that he was on edge.

"You're not just visiting without the singer, are you?" she asked.

"No," Edward admitted after a moment.

"A lot of the things that Marcus, Caius, and even your Carlisle say," she paused, weighing her words, "They're not precisely right when it comes to what they say about mates." Edward froze, unsure of what she meant.

"In the moment, it feels like you can only imagine life with this one person. But that passes. It goes more slowly for us than humans, and because of our clarity, it's far easier for us to dwell."

"You really don't think we have soulmates?" Edward asked. Jane smiled slightly.

"No, I just don't think we're given them. I think we make them ourselves."

Edward was seized with terror after she left the small hall. The divorce was not something he wanted the Volturi to have squirreled away as a consideration in their plots. He followed Jane out into the main area, which had been studded with sculptures unique to the evening. She handed Aro a thin glass of bright blood, and he grasped her hand as she did. His eyes glazed for a split moment, absorbing her thoughts. It was too late. He noticed Edward and look over at him with a hideous pity.

Edward fought everything to remain calm, and slid back to the small chamber they had allotted to the two of them. Carlisle was there, waiting for him. He had a small modern canvas, with a strangely modern painting.

"What do you see?" Carlisle asked him, with a cheerfulness Edward found overbearing. He glanced over at the picture, expecting something unimpressive. The chaos of the lines danced in front of him. The subject was simply the fortifications on the main hill in Volterra, but the shape of it danced.

"How is it...?" Edward stammered, unable to tear his eyes away from it. Carlisle beamed.

"I painted it," he said, "I have to admit, the technique is not my own invention, I was helped by this artist that Afton introduced me to. There are layers of ultraviolet reflective paint under other hues, all of which our eyes can pick up on."

Edward recalled Esme's interest in photography. He took the canvas from Carlisle and tilted it slightly in his hands, watching the effect intensify as a result.

"I'm not sure I know the vantage point of the painting, although I recognize the viewed location of course," Edward mused.

"Here, let me show you," Carlisle offered, taking the canvas from him and setting it down. They were permitted out of the compound by the guard in spite of the coming sunrise after a quick explanation from Carlisle. They wound through the maze of the old city, down the speckled Tuscan stones that dotted the hill, to a forgotten grove of cypress trees that gazed up at where they had been just before.

The compound was built into the assertive castle that announced the until recently undefeated vampiric world government's center. It emerged proudly out of the earth before jutting into the sky with intention. All Edward saw was power, but he looked over at Carlisle, who had painted the land like it was celebrating, and tried to look back on it with what he had seen.

Carlisle was entertained in a way that he hadn't been for centuries. Edward had always been quick to grasp a concept, clutching at them hungrily before devouring them, but he seemed to find first the painting and now the sight itself irreconcilable. It took an effort not to laugh, not only at the harmless confusion, but how much this reminded him of when Edward discovered Bella's impenetrable head. No matter the situation, it seemed to frustrate him endlessly to come across something like this. Carlisle knew that Edward would pick up on the thought, but the least he could do is not say it aloud.

"You know everything that I think in terms of words, but you don't absorb how others see," Carlisle quietly said after Edward finally relented and relaxed against one of the trees. It shaded them both from the sun that the Volturi would kill them for revealing themselves with.

"I didn't imagine until now that that it could be so different. Our eyes themselves aren't so different."

"But we are," Carlisle concluded, sadly.

"I..." Edward stuttered, "I don't want to necessarily be the way that I am."

"Before you can change, you have to decide what you are trying to become."

"A better person," Edward said without reservation.

"That's vague," Carlisle said, his tone cautious.

Edward fell silent, considering if he had any way of elaborating, before letting every half thought-out retort slip away into the stark sunshine inches from them. It slowly gave way to the safety of twilight, and they returned to the castle, where they politely withstood the harsh warnings not to risk exposure in direct sunlight again.

Hunger crept up on them, so Carlisle gave Afton his various works, although he papered over that first piece, and handed it off to Jane with the request that she ship it to his main address in Forks. Hiding from sun, which was growing bolder as the equinox approached, they meandered to the Adriatic.

Edward impatiently wanted again to swim across, so Carlisle, with the weighted deliberate motions of a heavy heart, tied Esme's scarf to a twisted laurel near the shore. Edward left behind the jacket and cap, covering its gnarled root. They crossed the still water to Croatia.

They hunted in the woods, finding a brown bear, a rare delicacy in the region. Carlisle snipped off its arms and held back its head as he drank directly from one and gestured the other for Edward. The bear screamed with pain. Edward realized most of the blood was gushing out around his mouth, and was covering the tattered clothing that was still somewhat wet.

The animal fainted in shock, and its death loomed. Carlisle tilted it over and directed Edward to feed from the chest. Thirst was still hot in Edward's mouth, so he punctured through the ribs and downed the aorta, as the heart was gripped by a few last spasms. They both leaned against the body, both of them covered in clothing worn through by the rough swimming, the sea salt, and now speckled with still hot blood.

"This is disgusting," Edward said, breaking the silence. Carlisle laughed.

"Where to next?" Edward added aimlessly.

"We could visit the Romanians," Carlisle suggested.

"Absolutely not," Edward said, "We had enough to deal with from the Volturi."

"Greece?" Carlisle asked.

They quietly walked through the coves and coasts. The borders were more tightly enforced as they were reaching the edge of the European Union and the Schengen Agreement. Barbed wire spiraled across fences they both quickly leaped over. They had reached the boundaries of a human cage they didn't even know they were inside of, but they quickly traversed.

It was March by the time they reached northern Greece. The ice and snow were gone, but the chilly frosts remained, particularly in the overlooked woods they favored. They were near Thessaloniki, and starting to feel the thirst on their tongues again. Their clothes were quite worn down at this point. They both seem to have surrendered to the realities of running at breakneck speeds across Europe in winter. Carlisle cornered a lone wolf, but Edward paused.

"You should have it entirely yourself," Edward said. Carlisle gave him a quizzical look, but pounced nonetheless, snapping back its neck like a twig, before letting the blood soak into him and his clothes. Edward stood back, unsure if Carlisle had always been so hungry for the blood in prior hunts or if this was a recent development. Wiping himself clean, Carlisle offered Edward a drink, but he declined.

"It's a normal time of day, but overcast. We should get a room in the city. I can come back for a quick hunt," he explained. They passed through the alley ways of the modern city, finally agreeing on a hotel. Although dressed in horrible clothing, they were both handsome, and had credit cards that ran like a dream, even if covered in a strange film of brine.

Carlisle laid down, murmuring that he needed to think about some things. Edward grunted in recognition, before heading out of the room, into the growing darkness of the city. He walked at human pace even without Carlisle to suggest it, and congratulated himself on enjoying the human perspective it offered.

Hunger was burning in him, but he kept it locked away. He imagined the people, whom he noticed more and more smelled like bears, like wolves, like food, they were just stories, just figments. The fiddler in the street was a memory. The rroma woman begging was a social concern. The children playing by the fountain were an allegory. The tourists loudly talking in English in the cafe were a projection of his own guilt. Amid the familiar buzz of everyday thoughts, something suddenly jolted him.

"That would be forty-six dead. They can't catch me."

He traced the continuing thoughts, which rang out again and again, a staggering number of murderers, until he finally found the source. Taking advantage of the darkness, three young men were quickly tagging buildings with the emblem of Golden Dawn.

The two younger ones seemed just foolish. They laughed as they sprayed the symbol, then quickly moved on. The third, quickly looking out before them, before darting back to the make sure they weren't being followed, was casing the buildings as they did this. Intermittently, he would think about the rroma woman Edward saw just moments before.

Edward was suddenly between them, and had the younger ones against the wall they were tagging. They yelped in shock, and then screamed, "cops" before rushing out into the darkness. Their older friend had scrambled away in the other direction, craftily avoiding the fight. Edward caught him instantly.

"I-" the man began to say, but Edward smacked him, and twisted the neck, the blood ran like a river, and it was in him, steaming like water poured into a broiling pot. It was like bells of justice pealing, like a drum of righteousness banging, like the soft voice of a violin crying.

And Edward was soaring. He couldn't imagine the map of the city, he just instantly found himself in the room, and Carlisle was shaking him, his tone modulating below human hearing but shouting all the same. And then his lips, still covered in human blood, were on Carlisle's. And Carlisle. He pushed Edward back, then reached for him again, then licked the blood from his cheeks, and they were against each other, and carefully pressing against the room's door so it wouldn't shatter.

And then Carlisle was gone. And then he and Carlisle were both gone. They were in the woods again. And he pressed against him and Carlisle rebuffed him. And then Edward was shouting, and crying. The best that his eyes, pickled by vampire's venom a century ago, could do was squint though. And then Carlisle was against him again, soft, warm, patient, and kind. This was worse than the hunger, because delivering what he wanted didn't end it, but strengthened the appetite. And he was finding himself again, and there was Carlisle, and they were together in an abandoned farmhouse. And he curled up around him, feeling the radiating heat of the digesting blood still in them both. Carlisle pulled away again.

"I shouldn't be-" he managed to say before Edward cut him off with another kiss, trying to go back to where they were.

"Aren't you my son," he pulled away to say, only for Edward to soberly wonder, "Wasn't Esme your 'daughter' for a while too?"

"She..." Carlisle said before becoming lost in his thoughts. He cradled his head in his hands, and let Edward hold him.

"She was sixteen when you met," Edward gently said.

"I waited," Carlisle managed to say, "I waited until she was my age."

"She also chose the time for you," Edward sullenly said.

"I was prepared to let her go, but you showed me..." Carlisle trailed off. Edward wanted to kiss him, but wasn't sure why.

"I'm older than she was," Edward said quietly. Carlisle frowned.

"I'm still older than that," Carlisle said.

"Five years, when we have had centuries after-"

"I've had centuries," Carlisle suddenly said flatly, "You've had one."

"I don't know if we can think about this in human terms," Edward concluded.

"I played the role of your father for so long..." Carlisle said with frustration, "I don't know how to..."

"I don't know how to either," Edward said before kissing him. Carlisle pushed him back.

"You drank human blood," he said with fierce annoyance.

"A fascist murderer," Edward said nonchalantly. "Trust me, it was a comparatively ethical decision." Carlisle relented somewhat.

"You can't fall back on old habits."[WN2]

"I won't."

Carlisle let Edward's arms fully fold around him, although neither dared do anything else. The starry sky of the now clear night shifted around them, giving way to a crisp dawn. Finally, they rose up out of the now broken bed, and surveyed what was left in the halfway collapsed building.

"God, no wonder they're all so emotional," Edward said, they rummaged through the few left behind clothes. "Human blood goes straight to the head." Carlisle nodded in agreement.

"We are in the right area to visit ruins," Edward mused. Carlisle paused as if thinking.

"Or we could walk around a bit in Istanbul?" Edward offered. Carlisle frowned.

"Your eyes are rather red, and will be for a while," Carlisle gently began, "I suspect mine aren't as strongly colored, but I doubt they look normal either."

"Look human," Edward corrected. Carlisle was clearly annoyed, but Edward didn't hear any complaints.

"Did you figure out a way to block my talent?" Edward suddenly said aloud.

"Not so much block, as… adapt to it, by rendering thoughts as much as possible non-verbally" Carlisle answered, suddenly much softer than before.

"The painting was a test," Edward said.

"I suppose… but at least partly this isn't about you," Carlisle said, turning around to face Edward.

"You want to be thinking in this mode… for your own reasons?"

"It feels clearer," Carlisle explained, "I can't put it precisely into words, and I suspect that's why this is the way it is. There's something lost when-"

"People and vampires alike _always_ had words before this," Edward interrupted.

"You're right, it's not just having words, but having to have them. It's cumbersome."

Edward fell silent, and Carlisle didn't add anything more. They lived simply for the month as they waited for Edward's eyes to drain, with sparing language and even more sparing departures from the shared bed. They had no needs to attend to, no habits dulled by forgetting, no broader social ties to structure their time. It was a long Sunday afternoon, stretching lazily into day after day.

Carlisle gingerly propped himself up against the damaged wall of the old farmhouse. It still shook lightly, so much so that Edward wondered if even a human without tools might be able to break it. The sunshine of late Spring gaudily fell on him, making him twinkle like a lost constellation. His face looked as it always did like a handsome man thinking kindly about his polite considerations, but the longer Edward stared the more it seemed like a mask worn over a face so tired it could not be solaced.

"You regret being a vampire," Edward said, careful to make it a statement and not an accusation.

"I was raised to hunt vampires," Carlisle answered, the exhaustion seeping through despite his best efforts.

"Yes, but it's more than that," Edward said, grasping for something there, under the stories Carlisle had told and re-told to him, something past the words. The older vampire simply gazed at him with a measured, neutral look on his face.

"Do you regret siring me?" Edward asked, unable to keep the pain out of his voice. Instantly, Carlisle's mind answered him with a clear "no" even as his lips remained still, knowing the thought alone had been enough.

"Do you regret forming the rest of the family?" Edward said, but before he could finish the question even, he heard Carlisle's repetition again of a defined if quiet "no". Edward lay on the bed, looking over at him, at a complete loss for words.

"I miss sleeping," Carlisle said with amusement, as he stood up, and the wall buckled without quite collapsing.

"There is something so powerful in the intimacy of allowing yourself to be so vulnerable, often with another of your choice," he explained, peeling off his clothes as he approached the bed. Edward couldn't help letting a small smirk cross his face.

"You really miss sleeping? Because it's dangerous?"

"Because it could be, but with the right person, it's not."

"Vampire."

"Still a person."

A person, after all, doesn't have to be a human being specifically. It only means a character, a face worn over one's own, and so any being crafty and careful enough to conceal can bear that title.

Edward felt so guilty about the state that they left the farmhouse in. It was already barely livable when they happened upon in, but they were leaving it with the wear and tear of not only vampiric strength but while being distracted. None of the windows survived. The roof was almost entirely caved in. One lone wall stood undamaged.

"It had already been abandoned," Carlisle said, trying to reason with him.

"They might have wanted to sell it," Edward said with an aimless frustration. They both knew there was no easy way of providing compensation, particularly while avoiding unwanted attention.

"We will be more mindful next time," Carlisle said, and Edward felt the sinuous connections between every crystalline fiber in his body.

They wandered through Greece for a few more days, slowly meandering towards Athens. The balmy sunshine of May made for long, lazy hunts through the hillsides, and brief urban escapades in the nights. Airplane tickets in hand, they spent the final night in a grove by a seaside town in Attica.

"What are you thinking?" Edward asked, nervously.

"Why don't you tell me?" Carlisle said playfully.

"You know why I'm asking you," Edward said with a little frustration.

"If you can hear people's thoughts, maybe with practice you can feel them too," Carlisle gently said.

"I wanted to ask you," Edward said, "Not to pull it out of you – with words or otherwise."

Carlisle's face fell, and beneath it was that exhaustion unrelenting as ever. He hadn't wanted to argue, but to make a game out of it. As long as they were struggling, he would have goals in what to say and how to say it. Their entangled arms could be human hands and not living stone. Their futures could be an open collaborative canvas, and not as fixed and forever as their faces.

In spite of the exchange, Edward didn't pull away. They were together, if in uneasily silent darkness.

The guided performance of security was once again a welcome distraction, before boarding, while flying, while changing flights. Again and again, it distributed their words, their bodies, their items, so they could disappear into its theater of scaring off would-be terrorists. Perpetually, it shifted them and itself, reinventing "safe" and redefining "proper". It was a game without winning or losing or ending.

Their final destination, San Francisco, felt like a dream after that miniature universe of its own infectious logic. Carlisle sleepwalked to the counter and left with the keys to a car, Edward distractedly following. They sped through the redwoods, sturdy and alien, before crossing the invisible borders into first Oregon and then Washington. The highway exit to Forks gave way to the backcountry roads, wet with recent rain, and Edward suddenly heard a voice he had imagined was lost to the world.

He smacked at Carlisle's hands, until the older vampire slowed the car, before pulling it over to the side of the road. Edward's eyes were wide with a frantic energy, and a palpable fear as he suddenly jolted awake.

"Esme," he finally managed to say aloud.

"I won't change the rooms, in case they come back of course," she thought.

"At the house?" Carlisle said, with an eagerness that wounded Edward.

"I can convert some of the garage space first."

"I need to know – she's at the main house?"

"Let's start with the mail, we can come back to the architecture."

"Edward, you have to tell me. I need to know where to go."

"This one is from Volterra."

"I'm going to go there first."

The car started moving again. Edward had closed his eyes, and was desperately trying to will his ears to stop hearing either words or thoughts.

"It's the fortifications on the main hill of the city."

The car shifted, the way it always did at the bottom of the hill, just before the house.

"It's from the perspective of that grove Carlisle showed me."

The car stopped.

"The cypresses there… I miss them."

Carlisle was out of the car.

"Someone's outside."

Carlisle was on the steps.

"It's him!"

Carlisle was opening the door.

"I'm so happy to see him again."

Edward was gone. He was in the woods. He was always the fastest, and he couldn't stop running. He slammed directly into a tree trunk, pulverizing it. There was another. He hit stone. He was through it. He hit something warm. He felt blood on his face. It smelled like deer. He hoped it wasn't a person.

He knocked on the door, suddenly composed. Charlie Swan answered with a gun.

"Bella is not here," he said gruffly as ever.

"I wasn't looking for her, actually," Edward lied.

"Sure," the older man said, the original wariness towards him having fermented into paranoia in light of the divorce.

"Really. I wanted to talk to you," Edward said, pushing past the gun, and entering the house.

"What exactly do you want?" Charlie asked as he poured himself coffee. Rain began to fall outside.

"You have been through a divorce yourself. Did you ever get into a…" Edward paused searching through the modern terms he had run across, "A rebound relationship?"

Charlie thought, "I should have shot him." Normally, he was fuzzier to read, but that came across clear as day.

"Listen," Charlie said as his annoyance descended even deeper into contempt, "I want you to leave."

Edward gave the younger man's older and human body a quick assessment. He had aged well, but was beginning to wear his years. He glanced away to the peeling yellow kitchen cabinets, the ones Bella's mother had done herself and her estranged father had never had the courage to change.

"Bella told me about those," Edward said.

"You know… I really would rather not have this conversation, especially right now," Charlie said, before downing more coffee.

"She thinks you never had the courage to move on from Renée," Edward said. Charlie froze, then deftly put down the mug.

"You need to leave," Charlie said, somehow finding an untapped reservoir of hostility to the vampire.

"I think she's wrong, both about that and to judge you that way," Edward quickly said.

"What do you think then?" Charlie said with exasperation.

"I think you knew what you wanted then and that's still what you would like now," Edward explained. Charlie paused, and Edward noticed some of the anger fall from him.

"Bella had every right to leave you," Charlie quietly said, as he reached for his gun. Edward shook his hands, hoping to defuse the situation.

"This isn't about her, or even Renée really," Edward spat out, nervously eying the gun.

"You should leave, like I said," Charlie was standing, the gun was at the ready.

"I'm saying that I wish I was like you," Edward said, still trying to explain himself as she backed towards the front door of the house.

"So, that's why she left you," Charlie said, inching closer, "You found a floozy?"

"No," Edward said, at a loss for words, "That's not at all…"

"I hope he didn't go in here," Carlisle's thoughts rang out, he couldn't have been more than twenty feet from the house. Edward froze.

"You just drove her out, so you could go ahead with that," Charlie said, his anger seeping into bitterness.

"Can I leave through your backdoor?" Edward asked, grasping for an escape route.

"You can go out the front," Charlie said, with the last of his patience evaporated, as Carlisle knocked.

"I need to use your bathroom," Edward began to run through the possible excuses.

"No, you don't," Charlie said, lowering the gun, and stepping towards the door.

"Don't" Edward blurted out.

Carlisle knocked again, and called out, "Hello, Officer Swan?"

Edward felt the subtle tone of pedantry, buried within the kindness in the older vampire's voice. It was disguised within the vocal bouquet, for him to hear and Charlie to miss. It was the spirit passing over one house and visiting another. He had called Bella his lamb, and she no longer was there to cover his threshold, shielding him.

"Coming," Charlie said, as he stepped up to the door, and opened it. Edward couldn't stop thinking as the human fumbled with the door, how easily he could snap those arms, knock aside the chest, feed on him, dispose of him. Running was smarter, but Edward knew how futile any way of avoiding Carlisle was. Why couldn't he pick his own way to burn?

"I'm sorry to bother you this late," Carlisle began, his eyes darting between Edward and Charlie.

"It's just early at this point," Charlie said, suddenly far more good-naturedly now that Carlisle was there with Edward.

"I suspect you know why I'm here," Carlisle said, with a wincing smile. Edward sank back.

"Is he… doing alright?" Charlie asked, in a hushed tone.

"Frankly, this has been a hard time for him," Carlisle said with a concern, warm enough for Charlie's ears but dappled with chills that Edward's ear could perceive.

Edward turned, he didn't care anymore. He burst through the rear of the house, into a whirlwind of shattered wood, first from the building, then from the forest that backed into it. He felt a soft hand on his back, and then the slick mud rushed up to him as he was pinned.

"Fastest," Carlisle said, the mockery reaching the surface, but still obscured by a hearty cheer.

"Just kill me," Edward said, trembling.

"I would never," Carlisle said, an earnest shock at the idea crossing his face.

"Because I'm your first," Edward said quietly, a sudden stillness coming over him.

"Well…" Carlisle began, easing off from the younger vampire.

"I'm not…" Edward said, as the soft rain soaked through his shirt.

"You are, and you aren't," Carlisle said, suddenly a bit at pains.

"I was the first success," Edward realized aloud.

"I didn't want to depress any of you with that fact," Carlisle said wistfully.

"How many?"

"Just two."

"With one out of three odds, you were willing to turn Esme?" Edward was standing, and unable to keep his voice low.

"It was that or she die," Carlisle looked up at him.

"And I guess that made the odds two to two by the time of Rosalie," Edward said, chilled into a quieter voice.

"Yes," Carlisle said, "And that's probably part of why being a vegetarian stuck for her."

"She never tasted blood," Edward mused.

"But she had not only a teacher, but two prior students for guidance," Carlisle said, "Besides, she had an aversion to blood because of her… circumstances. That facilitated her success, but in the long term, she needed something you hadn't required in the same way."

"Emmet," Edward said, "He had all that and a mate within the new pack."

"Alice and Jasper were an altogether new part of the experiment," Carlisle said, "Since the premise was no longer if a vegetarian could be sired, but how easily an established vampire could convert to that."

"And Bella…?" Edward said with confusion. Carlisle smirked slightly.

"For Esme, a reinforcement structure within a romantic relationship was key to her success," Carlisle said, "That was intrinsically part of the model that Rosalie absorbed and passed on to Emmett, and in turn how we all managed Alice and Jasper."

"Was it necessary though really?" Edward asked.

"You don't understand," Carlisle said, picking himself up and beginning to walk back to the Charlie's house.

"But was it necessary?" Edward pressed.

"It wasn't for you," Carlisle said, "It might ease either version of becoming a vegetarian vampire, but it's hardly required, clearly."

"But…" Edward was at a loss for words.

"It became associated with successful conversion or successful maintenance, so much that you pathologized your lack of a mate," Carlisle said.

"Are you saying-"

"Why don't you read my mind and find out?" Carlisle smiled playfully. Edward felt the dullness in the air, that Carlisle was keeping everything locked tightly in himself.

"I don't think I can go back," Edward said, slowing as they reached the edge of the forest into the Swan's backyard.

"This was never about 'can'" Carlisle said sweetly.

"Don't you and Esme need time?" Edward asked, a bit taken aback.

"No, she understands all too well that we were all emotionally fraught," Carlisle answered, beckoning Edward into the small clearing before the house. Edward stayed put.

"I think…" Edward pulled back further.

"What?" Carlisle asked, a light cheerfulness cascading around the surface of his voice.

"Where are we going from here?" Edward said carefully.

"We can decide that at the house," Carlisle said, beckoning him more urgently. Edward took another step back.

"We're just starting over again, the three of us?" Edward said with a little more alarm in his voice than he wanted.

"Your mother has always wanted children," Carlisle said.

"And what about my father?" Edward asked. Carlisle's smile fell.

"Technically, he died a century ago," Carlisle said somberly.

"That he did," Edward replied. The quiet drizzle came to a standstill. A soft gust rustled the trees around them. Charlie, unknowing of what was behind him, tapped away at the back of his house, erecting a makeshift cover.

"I can't let you go," Carlisle said, all warmth drained.

"You let everyone else go," Edward took a faltering step back. His speed wasn't as much of an advantage as he had thought, and he couldn't count on strength either.

"None of them regressed to human blood in the past six months before going," Carlisle said straightforwardly, beginning to walk towards Edward.

"None of them were in the position I was in," Edward pleaded, his mind racing for a way out.

"It's simple, Edward," Carlisle said, nearly within arm's length, "You stay."

Edward zipped out of reach, dodging a darting grasp from the older vampire. He sped forward, into the clearing, he heard the fierce footsteps just behind him. He was at Charlie, he was ripping into the older human – the power rang through him, and Carlisle was smacking him, but it felt like a breeze. And he smashed the older vampire back, into the clearing, watching the errant crystalline fiber skid away from him as he slid over the rough mud.

He looked at the bleeding man, lying on the ground, entering shock. He could still drink from him. He looked back, at Carlisle raising himself up out of the muck, with fire in his eyes. Charity to Charlie would also mean escape from Carlisle. He melted into the woods, pondering as he went what they would say about him. Charlie could in all fairness call him a monster. Bella, for that matter, could too. But Esme? Edward wasn't sure he knew her anymore. His older siblings? He couldn't imagine what betrayal they would see in him.

Edward wasn't sure where he was when he stopped running. Carlisle hadn't followed. Of course he hadn't. Charlie was a fresh patient. If he turned him, he would have an older man for the role of Esme's father when they played house. A distraction and a strength boost all in one, and for a small enough amount of blood that Edward wasn't as confused as he had been in Greece.

Forcing his thoughts away from them, Edward pulled himself up to the top of the nearest sycamore tree. Ridges danced in the distance, through a blue gray haze. It seemed to be the southern Appalachians. He leapt down. Walking at human speed would clear his head. He let the sunlight ripple from his skin, warming the outer crystal layer. If he was seen, he was seen.


End file.
